Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Kyle’s Verdict Is In

Transcript

Kyle’s Verdict Is In · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: The verdict is in in the most controversial case in
0:04
Speaker 1: the country, that would be the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse.
0:07
Speaker 1: Everybody seems to have an opinion about it. Not very
0:10
Speaker 1: many of those opinions are particularly informed by fact. So
0:14
Speaker 1: on this podcast, we're going to get back to our
0:16
Speaker 1: roots and we're going to break down the case. What
0:20
Speaker 1: actually happened, what the law says, what the politics says,
0:24
Speaker 1: and what is going to happen now. This is Verdict
0:27
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Speaker 1: or text Cactus to six five five three two. Welcome
4:32
Speaker 1: back to Verdicts with Ted Cruz. It is so wonderful
4:35
Speaker 1: to be with our friend Liz Wheeler again. Liz, though
4:38
Speaker 1: I know you've been a way, you've been doing your
4:39
Speaker 1: own speeches. You've been doing your show, the Liz Wheeler Show.
4:42
Speaker 1: Last time I saw you, I was on your show
4:45
Speaker 1: at a play at the National Conservatism Conference where all
4:48
Speaker 1: three of us actually we're speaking, and it's wonderful to
4:52
Speaker 1: be with you finally again. Yeah, it's so good to
4:55
Speaker 1: see you. It is funny how the three of us
4:56
Speaker 1: tend to always be in the same location, but not
4:58
Speaker 1: because of the same reason. We come separately. But we did.
5:01
Speaker 1: We got to set down for a long form interview,
5:03
Speaker 1: you and I did. We did, and we actually talked
5:05
Speaker 1: about this guy who's the other guy on this show.
5:08
Speaker 1: What's his name? Is the sitting US Senator? I forget
5:10
Speaker 1: what's that? Ted Cruz? Yes, I don't know if your
5:12
Speaker 1: ears were itching a little bit when we did discuss you.
5:14
Speaker 1: We did discuss your show, even though you weren't there.
5:16
Speaker 1: Whatever you said, I wasn't there. I didn't do it, Yo, totalized,
5:20
Speaker 1: do not believe a word of it. Well, we're going
5:22
Speaker 1: to be getting into exactly what happened here in not
5:26
Speaker 1: just not merely the political angles and the media angles
5:29
Speaker 1: and the narratives, but what actually happened in Kenosha, Wisconsin
5:33
Speaker 1: that led to this trial. Of Kyle Rittenhouse. Then we
5:35
Speaker 1: will get to what it means. So Liz, we will
5:37
Speaker 1: see you in just a little bit when we need
5:39
Speaker 1: to process what all of this actually means. Thanks Michael.
5:43
Speaker 1: Everybody at home, everybody at work is talking about this
5:47
Speaker 1: verdict and it is an amazing thing because it is
5:51
Speaker 1: so polarized less and we live in a time where
5:53
Speaker 1: everything is polarized. But but the morality tale that is
5:57
Speaker 1: told about the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, they're two different universes.
6:02
Speaker 1: If you talk to someone on the left that they
6:06
Speaker 1: are horrified, they are shaken, They're like, Okay, some some
6:11
Speaker 1: crazed white supremacist illegally brought a gun across state lines
6:15
Speaker 1: and then gunned down protesters, and now he was set free,
6:19
Speaker 1: and vigilantes are encouraged to shoot anyone they want. On
6:23
Speaker 1: the other side, you get a morality play of you know,
6:26
Speaker 1: Kyle Rittenhouse, this great hero for justice was vindicated. And listen,
6:32
Speaker 1: I am very glad for the verdict. I think the
6:35
Speaker 1: jury reached the right verdict, which is not guilty. But
6:39
Speaker 1: but by any measure, what happened that night in Wisconsin
6:43
Speaker 1: was a tragedy, and it was a tragedy on many fronts,
6:46
Speaker 1: because there there is a lot of ignorance. Yes, just
6:48
Speaker 1: on the basic facts of the case. You know, members
6:52
Speaker 1: of my own family have reached out to me and said, wait,
6:55
Speaker 1: I thought this happened. Wait, I thought it was like this,
6:57
Speaker 1: you know, and just getting things wrong. Maria shrive Are
7:00
Speaker 1: actually sent out a tweet. Maria Shriverers is plugged in
7:03
Speaker 1: to the media and to politics as it can possibly
7:06
Speaker 1: be when you're at Kennedy, and nevertheless she seems not
7:10
Speaker 1: to understand the basic facts. I think you had a
7:12
Speaker 1: little bit of an exchange with her on Twitter. Well
7:14
Speaker 1: I did so. Her tweet was rather amazing in that
7:20
Speaker 1: she tweeted she said, I'm trying to take a beat
7:23
Speaker 1: to digest the written house verdict. My son just asked me,
7:28
Speaker 1: how is it possible that he didn't get charged for anything?
7:33
Speaker 1: How is that possible? I don't have an answer for him.
7:37
Speaker 1: I gotta say, I read this and look, on one level,
7:39
Speaker 1: it's it's stunning. I mean this woman. I looked actually
7:42
Speaker 1: at her Twitter. I wasn't sure what she's doing now,
7:45
Speaker 1: but but her Twitter bio describes herself today as an
7:49
Speaker 1: NBC anchor, so she is literally paid to be a
7:52
Speaker 1: journalist and presumably to report on the news, and she
7:56
Speaker 1: has absolutely no idea what occurred. Try this number one,
8:01
Speaker 1: He was charged. Remember she starts with how could it
8:04
Speaker 1: be he wasn't charged? He was charged. He obviously was charged.
8:08
Speaker 1: There was a trial. He was charged with six counts,
8:11
Speaker 1: and as I tweeted that that thing that just finished
8:15
Speaker 1: was his trial. But like, let's start with that, NBC
8:18
Speaker 1: is claiming he wasn't charged with anything. Very basic facts. Look,
8:24
Speaker 1: let's let's let's stop for a second and go back
8:26
Speaker 1: to what happened that night last year. We all remember,
8:31
Speaker 1: we saw riots occurring across the country. We saw violent
8:36
Speaker 1: riots occurring across the country, and we saw in the
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Speaker 1: August of August of twenty twenty, in these riots, we
8:46
Speaker 1: saw cars being firebombed, we saw stores being looted, we
8:51
Speaker 1: saw enormous mayhem, and we saw it made even worse
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Speaker 1: by politicians, almost exclusively Democrats and maybe maybe exclusively Democrats,
9:03
Speaker 1: refusing to enforce the laws and so allowing these riots
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Speaker 1: to rage. And in Kenosha, Wisconsin, uh, there were three
9:12
Speaker 1: days of violent riots and hundreds of fires set and
9:17
Speaker 1: stores looted and car dealerships looted and and just just
9:21
Speaker 1: rampant violence. And this was led by BLM and Antifa.
9:26
Speaker 1: I mean, the Kenosha riot was specifically because the cops
9:31
Speaker 1: shot Jacob Blake, who was a man who was resisting arrest,
9:34
Speaker 1: who was accused of sexual assault, who was reaching into
9:37
Speaker 1: a car with a weapon. The car had kids in
9:39
Speaker 1: it as well. You know, there had been this long
9:42
Speaker 1: standoff where he wouldn't he wouldn't submit to being arrested.
9:46
Speaker 1: And but but even that then caused days and days
9:49
Speaker 1: of riots as though it were some grave injustice. Yeah.
9:53
Speaker 1: You literally had a knife wielding felon who was threatening
9:57
Speaker 1: the police officers who got shot. And by the way,
10:00
Speaker 1: it's really bad idea to threaten police officers with a weapon.
10:04
Speaker 1: It can very easily end in deadly force. And that
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Speaker 1: that that is what occurred there. But in this hyper
10:11
Speaker 1: leftist environment, a criminal threat threatening a police officer with
10:16
Speaker 1: a weapon, who in turn faces deadly force becomes lionized
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Speaker 1: as a hero. Yeh, And we had riots occurring for
10:25
Speaker 1: multiple days. Now. Kyle Rittenhoun House. He was seventeen years old.
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Speaker 1: Kyle lived about twenty miles away from Kenosha, so he
10:32
Speaker 1: lived in Illinois, it's it is true he lived in Illinois,
10:36
Speaker 1: but right on the state line between Illinois and Wisconsin
10:41
Speaker 1: and Kenosha, Wisconsin is where Kyle Rittenhouse's mom lived. It's
10:46
Speaker 1: where Kyle actually worked. He worked as a lifeguard in Kenosha.
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Speaker 1: So to say a cross state lines, people get this
10:51
Speaker 1: image of someone you know, you know me traveling from
10:55
Speaker 1: Texas to New York or something. You know, I mean this,
11:00
Speaker 1: this was twenty miles away from his house, that this
11:02
Speaker 1: was his neighborhood, where his mom worked, where he had,
11:05
Speaker 1: where his mom lived, where he worked, And there were
11:08
Speaker 1: multiple days of protests, and so Kyle went there to
11:11
Speaker 1: help help protect the stores, help protect the properties that
11:17
Speaker 1: were being burned. That we're being looted, and that sadly
11:21
Speaker 1: that the local law enforcement was not protecting he went there.
11:27
Speaker 1: One of the things that has been widely reported that
11:30
Speaker 1: people say as well, he was illegally carrying a gun.
11:34
Speaker 1: That is in fact false. He actually did not carry
11:37
Speaker 1: any gun across state lines. When he got to Wisconsin,
11:40
Speaker 1: he met a friend there who had an AAR fifteen.
11:43
Speaker 1: Now what is an AR fifteen? And this is again
11:45
Speaker 1: where people don't people don't necessarily understand the language. An
11:50
Speaker 1: AAR fifteen is a rifle. It's not a machine gun.
11:53
Speaker 1: An AAR fifteen is a legal rifle. In fact, it's
11:56
Speaker 1: the most popular rifle in the United States of America.
11:59
Speaker 1: It is a common rifle used for home defense. The difference,
12:06
Speaker 1: for those who are not familiar with firearms between an
12:10
Speaker 1: automatic rifle and a semi automatic rifle. An automatic rifle
12:13
Speaker 1: is a machine gun. You hold the trigger down and
12:16
Speaker 1: lots of bullets come out. A semi automatic rifle, you
12:21
Speaker 1: pull the trigger. Once one bullet comes out, you pull
12:23
Speaker 1: the trigger again. A second bullet comes out, so it
12:25
Speaker 1: takes one bullet for each pull of the trigger. Is
12:28
Speaker 1: the difference between automatic and semi automatic. Generally speaking, automatic rifles,
12:35
Speaker 1: machine guns are largely they're functionally illegal. They've been functionally
12:39
Speaker 1: illegal for over eighty years. You have very very limited
12:41
Speaker 1: licenses and permits to get one, but as a practical matter,
12:45
Speaker 1: most Americans it's the illegal to own a machine gun.
12:47
Speaker 1: Kyle Rittenhouse didn't have a machine gun. He had a
12:49
Speaker 1: semi automatic rifle. That rifle was his friend's rifle that
12:55
Speaker 1: his friend allowed him to use in Kenosha that night
12:58
Speaker 1: because they were both going out to try to protect
13:01
Speaker 1: the local community, protect the local community from violent criminals
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Speaker 1: that were threatening the community. So on the claim that
13:08
Speaker 1: he had an illegal gun, we know that claim is
13:11
Speaker 1: false because I mentioned a minute ago he had six charges.
13:15
Speaker 1: One of the charges that was brought against him was
13:19
Speaker 1: that he was carrying a gun illegally. That charge was
13:23
Speaker 1: dismissed by the trial court as a matter of law.
13:25
Speaker 1: The court ruled that it was wrong that it was
13:29
Speaker 1: legal for him to possess the firearm he had, So
13:31
Speaker 1: that claim is false. What happened was a violent riot
13:35
Speaker 1: was unfolding, and the violent riot consisted of a lot
13:39
Speaker 1: of really violent criminals. The first individual that written House
13:47
Speaker 1: encountered was a violent felon name Rosenbaum. Rosenbaum was a
13:59
Speaker 1: convicted child molester, someone who's served fifteen years in prison,
14:03
Speaker 1: a serial child molester more than one time. He pleaded
14:08
Speaker 1: guilty to two counts of molesting teenage boys. At the
14:13
Speaker 1: time he was charged, it was alleged that he had
14:15
Speaker 1: molested five different teenage boys, and he pleaded guilty and
14:19
Speaker 1: served fifteen years for it. So you were talking a serious,
14:23
Speaker 1: violent criminal and child molester. Rosenbaum saw Rittenhouse angrily pursued
14:35
Speaker 1: ritten House screamed at him that he was going to
14:39
Speaker 1: kill Rittenhouse, chased Rittenhouse and tried to physically grab his gun. Now,
14:48
Speaker 1: Kyle Rittenhouse is running away at the time. He's facing
14:54
Speaker 1: a large, angry, violent felon who is screaming death threats
15:01
Speaker 1: at him and trying to physically take his gun. And
15:05
Speaker 1: it is quite reasonable for someone to believe if the
15:09
Speaker 1: violent criminal succeeds in taking your gun, that he will
15:13
Speaker 1: do what he is threatening to do, which is to
15:15
Speaker 1: kill you. And so Kyle Rittenhouse shoots Rosenbaum and kills
15:19
Speaker 1: Rosenbaum as he's trying to take his gun. At this point,
15:26
Speaker 1: what does Rittenhouse do next? And remember the narrative that's
15:30
Speaker 1: being told of He's this you know, crazed vigilante. He's
15:34
Speaker 1: out there like wanting to shoot people. Rittenhouse begins running
15:39
Speaker 1: towards the police barricades, trying to turn himself in, and
15:47
Speaker 1: a mob chases him. So Rittenhouse running toward the cops,
15:51
Speaker 1: presumably not because he believes he has committed some crime,
15:56
Speaker 1: but as he's doing it, this mob, that this Antifa
15:59
Speaker 1: and BLM mob starts chasing after him, and Rittenhouse goes down. Now,
16:04
Speaker 1: at this point, you get the second interaction that's in
16:06
Speaker 1: play with the Rittenhouse trial, and that is Anthony Huber.
16:11
Speaker 1: So Anthony Huber, another convicted felon, comes up, and Hubert
16:14
Speaker 1: doesn't have a gun. Huber has a skateboard. Now, at
16:19
Speaker 1: a lot of these BLM and ANTIFA riots, the weapons
16:23
Speaker 1: that are used are not always conventional weapons. Sometimes it's
16:26
Speaker 1: a baseball bat, sometimes it's a skateboard, sometimes it's a
16:31
Speaker 1: can of soup. They'll actually throw cans at you. His
16:33
Speaker 1: cans are very heavy and if they clock you on
16:35
Speaker 1: the head, that's not going to leave you feeling very good,
16:39
Speaker 1: and that can really do some damage. But this is
16:41
Speaker 1: a part that's a little bit controverted because what the
16:44
Speaker 1: defenders of these felons and ANTIFA and BLM we're saying
16:49
Speaker 1: is that Rittenhouse had no right to shoot a guy
16:51
Speaker 1: who was simply hitting him with a skateboard. Actually, one
16:55
Speaker 1: of the prosecutors in the case said, look, everybody takes
16:58
Speaker 1: a beating every now and again. Is that is that
17:00
Speaker 1: the legal standard? You know, it's it's it's not. Um.
17:05
Speaker 1: You have a right to defend yourself from an imminent
17:07
Speaker 1: threat to your life and the imminent threat of harm
17:11
Speaker 1: and and he's afraid for his life. And so Huber
17:14
Speaker 1: is the second person as this guy's assaulting him again
17:17
Speaker 1: that he shoots and and kills Huber. He then has
17:21
Speaker 1: a third violent felon, Gauge gross Cruts, who are right,
17:29
Speaker 1: a third convicted felon is chasing him. Gross Cruts is armed. Now, interestingly,
17:37
Speaker 1: somebody here did have a gun illegally. That would be
17:39
Speaker 1: Gauge Gross Gross Cruts, who was the felon who illegally
17:42
Speaker 1: had a firearm, was carrying it illegally without a license.
17:46
Speaker 1: And Gauge testifies at the trial that he points his
17:52
Speaker 1: gun directly at Kyle from three feet away, points his gun,
17:58
Speaker 1: and when he points his gun and Kyle fires again,
18:01
Speaker 1: hits him in the arm, doesn't kill Gauge. Gauge survives
18:04
Speaker 1: and testifies, but does real damage to his arm. Those
18:08
Speaker 1: are the three people that were shot that night. Now
18:12
Speaker 1: it's worth noting several of the facts that the media
18:16
Speaker 1: got wrong. Number one, there are I'd be willing to
18:21
Speaker 1: bet tens of millions of people across America who believe
18:25
Speaker 1: Kyle Rittenhouse shot three black men because this has all
18:29
Speaker 1: been painted as a racial attack, as it so happens
18:36
Speaker 1: Kyle Rittenhouse did not shoot any African Americans. All three
18:40
Speaker 1: of the people he shot were white. Secondly, you know,
18:44
Speaker 1: it's interesting I've heard some people who say, well, Rittenhouse
18:49
Speaker 1: didn't know these guys were criminals, and it's worth pausing
18:53
Speaker 1: and thinking, why is it that all three of the
18:56
Speaker 1: people who were shot were criminals? And let me just say, look,
19:00
Speaker 1: when you're at a violent riot where they're committing crimes
19:05
Speaker 1: all around you, where they're burning cars, where they're looting,
19:10
Speaker 1: many of the people, I'd venture to say most of
19:12
Speaker 1: the people there are criminals. Well, this is I think
19:16
Speaker 1: where the confusion. Yes, this is where I think the
19:18
Speaker 1: confusion comes from. Because the way the media presented this riot,
19:22
Speaker 1: as they said it was a peaceful protest of anti
19:25
Speaker 1: racist demonstrators. And so yes, if you're at a peaceful
19:28
Speaker 1: protest of anti racist demonstrators, then you have no reason
19:31
Speaker 1: to believe that the people who are around you are criminals.
19:35
Speaker 1: But that wasn't the reality. If you are at a
19:38
Speaker 1: violent riot with arson and looting and assault and attempted murder,
19:42
Speaker 1: then there's a very good chance if you are around
19:45
Speaker 1: Antifa or some of the more lurid figures of BLM
19:49
Speaker 1: there is a statistically, it's almost a statistical certainty that
19:53
Speaker 1: you are around criminals. So we know what happened, which
19:57
Speaker 1: is very different than what the media told us happen.
20:00
Speaker 1: And we know that legally Rittenhouse was in the right.
20:04
Speaker 1: We know that the judge, you know, then the jury
20:08
Speaker 1: reached that conclusion. Certainly the jury reached that conclusion, and
20:11
Speaker 1: so he has been exonerated in this trial. But now
20:15
Speaker 1: that we know what did happen, I think the important
20:17
Speaker 1: thing is to ask what does it mean? And for
20:20
Speaker 1: that I think we should bring in our friend Liz Wheeler,
20:22
Speaker 1: who is back. Liz wonderful again, Thank you so much,
20:25
Speaker 1: Michael Senator. I think a lot of people, when they
20:28
Speaker 1: hear the analysis or read the facts, see the reality
20:31
Speaker 1: of what actually happened. Yes, they're very grateful that our
20:34
Speaker 1: system of justice worked in this particular instance, but they
20:36
Speaker 1: also want to know what happens next, What does this mean?
20:40
Speaker 1: What do we do moving forward? And one of the
20:42
Speaker 1: biggest questions that I've seen from people all over our country,
20:46
Speaker 1: of all political stripes, is what does it mean when
20:48
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice now says that they are going
20:50
Speaker 1: to potentially conduct a review of this verdict. Can Kyle
20:54
Speaker 1: Rittenhouse be tried again or what might that mean for him? Well,
20:57
Speaker 1: look the Biden Justice depart it's been fairly striking. In
21:02
Speaker 1: less than a year. They've managed to exceed the bar
21:06
Speaker 1: for the Obama Justice Department in terms of politicizing the
21:09
Speaker 1: Department of Justice. And I think that is an exceedingly
21:12
Speaker 1: troubling development that under Merrick Garland this has been a
21:16
Speaker 1: left wing Democratic Department of Justice. I think if the
21:21
Speaker 1: Department of Justice went after Rittenhouse, it would be an
21:23
Speaker 1: absolute abuse of power and a partisan abuse of power.
21:27
Speaker 1: There was a trial, the jury heard the evidence. The
21:29
Speaker 1: worst conduct in the aftermath of that night was from
21:35
Speaker 1: the media and from Democratic politicians who over and over
21:41
Speaker 1: and over again referred to Kyle Rittenhouse as a white supremacist. Senator.
21:45
Speaker 1: The President of the United States referred to Kyle Rittenhouse
21:48
Speaker 1: as a white supremacist. He put him in a campaign
21:50
Speaker 1: at the wild irresponsibility of democrat after democrat. It was
21:56
Speaker 1: a good political narrative to say this teenager was a
21:59
Speaker 1: white sup premises. The only problem for their story was
22:03
Speaker 1: there were no facts at the trial that backed it up,
22:07
Speaker 1: and they said it anyway. They said it deliberately. They
22:11
Speaker 1: said it repeatedly, and listen, this is something I've been
22:14
Speaker 1: saying for some time. I think they're a bunch of
22:19
Speaker 1: media outlets and Hollywood celebrities who had better hire some
22:25
Speaker 1: defamation lawyers because Rittenhouse is going to be suing a
22:29
Speaker 1: lot of them and they don't have a defense. They
22:32
Speaker 1: don't have a good defense because there are people who
22:34
Speaker 1: are actually in a position to know facts, and they
22:37
Speaker 1: decided this seventeen year old's life doesn't matter to me.
22:42
Speaker 1: I'm going to call him a Nazi, and who cares
22:45
Speaker 1: what the facts are because it fits my politics. Well,
22:48
Speaker 1: I think that's what a lot of people are wondering now,
22:50
Speaker 1: is knowing that we have every strong free speech protections
22:53
Speaker 1: in America, we don't have meant much of an opportunity
22:56
Speaker 1: for libel suits or slander or anything as they have
23:00
Speaker 1: in other countries. Does Rittenhouse have a case? Is he
23:03
Speaker 1: going to become the new owner of CNN or the
23:06
Speaker 1: Washington Poster or any of those outlets. So I think
23:09
Speaker 1: Rittenhouse has a very strong case. I think he will
23:13
Speaker 1: file defamation lawsuits. I hope he has retained good and
23:17
Speaker 1: effective lawyers, and I think he's going to have to assess.
23:20
Speaker 1: I think there are a lot of potential candidates to
23:22
Speaker 1: be defendants for these lawsuits. And you know that there's
23:27
Speaker 1: a famous Supreme Court decision called New York Times versus
23:31
Speaker 1: Sullivan that concerns the standards for defamation, and basically what
23:36
Speaker 1: it says is if someone's a public figure, if someone
23:42
Speaker 1: has injected themselves into the public discussion, that there's a
23:46
Speaker 1: higher standard to prove defamation. So, all right, I'm a
23:49
Speaker 1: public figure, I'm a US Senator, I ran for office,
23:51
Speaker 1: I've been elected. You can have the New York Times
23:56
Speaker 1: can say nasty stuff about me, and they do on
23:59
Speaker 1: any given day, probably have today. And as a general matter,
24:04
Speaker 1: it is very very hard for me to sue them
24:07
Speaker 1: for defamation. Why because the Supreme Court New York Times
24:11
Speaker 1: versus Sullivan said for me to succeed in a defamation suit,
24:15
Speaker 1: I have to prove actual malice. It's a standard they invented,
24:19
Speaker 1: which is a higher standard that basically they have to
24:23
Speaker 1: to to know their lying or be utterly reckless and
24:28
Speaker 1: saying we don't give a damn if we're lying, We're
24:30
Speaker 1: just going to spread it anyway. And so it's it's
24:33
Speaker 1: a pretty high standard. The interesting thing about ritten House,
24:36
Speaker 1: I think Rittenhouse has a real argument that he was
24:38
Speaker 1: not a public figure. He was a teenage kid who
24:42
Speaker 1: the press made a public figure. But but when when
24:46
Speaker 1: you started seeing the media and celebrities and Democrats attacking him,
24:52
Speaker 1: he had not done anything to make himself a public figure. Yes,
24:56
Speaker 1: he was a defendant and trial if that happened later,
24:58
Speaker 1: and for that matter, after the jury verdict, after it
25:01
Speaker 1: was clear that there wasn't any evidence at trial he
25:04
Speaker 1: was a white supremacist, we saw a bunch of media
25:07
Speaker 1: folks repeating the same lies. I mean, I gotta say,
25:11
Speaker 1: the ones that doubled down after the verdict, they really
25:15
Speaker 1: should have put like a giant kick me sign on
25:18
Speaker 1: their back, except instead of kick me, it should have
25:21
Speaker 1: said sue me. Because they don't care what the truth is,
25:24
Speaker 1: They're going to spread their political message. Truth be damned.
25:28
Speaker 1: And I very much hope the people who were willing
25:32
Speaker 1: to spread lies and didn't care about the truth, I
25:37
Speaker 1: hope we see some very big damages awarded to Kyle Rittenhouse. Well,
25:44
Speaker 1: I think this idea that Kyle Rittenhouse and I agree, Senator,
25:46
Speaker 1: I mean, it seems that he's going to be in
25:48
Speaker 1: physical danger. Even his lawyer and his family have mentioned
25:51
Speaker 1: as much. But this speaks to the bigger philosophical idea
25:54
Speaker 1: that the left isn't interested in the pursuit of justice.
25:56
Speaker 1: They aren't interested in saying, listen, the jury spoke, and
25:59
Speaker 1: what and if we disagree with the jury, this is
26:01
Speaker 1: how our criminal justice system works. No, they're interested in
26:03
Speaker 1: destroying this kid. They're interested in destroying Kyle Rittenhouse's life,
26:07
Speaker 1: his reputation, his future, because they're interested in destroying the
26:11
Speaker 1: institution our criminal justice system, this presumption of innocence until
26:14
Speaker 1: proven guilty. And they admitted as much on Twitter in
26:18
Speaker 1: you know, during the trial itself, of course, but in
26:20
Speaker 1: the aftermath, but kind of staying within this same train.
26:24
Speaker 1: I don't think they're going to I don't think they're
26:26
Speaker 1: going to relent. I don't think they're going to give
26:27
Speaker 1: it up. I don't think they're going to stop coming
26:29
Speaker 1: after him. There's already been taught that they're going to
26:32
Speaker 1: be civil lawsuits against him, against Kyle Rittenhouse on behalf
26:36
Speaker 1: of some of the victims. From a legal perspective, what
26:39
Speaker 1: do you make of that? Look, I think they can
26:41
Speaker 1: bring lawsuits. I think the lawsuits are very unlikely to
26:45
Speaker 1: be successful. That may not stop people from filing harassment
26:49
Speaker 1: lawsuits to try to proceed. You know, we've seen in
26:54
Speaker 1: some circumstances you think O. J. Simpson, where there were
26:57
Speaker 1: civil lawsuits that had a lower thresh holding a greater
27:00
Speaker 1: chance of success than the criminal trial. This is very different.
27:03
Speaker 1: I mean that O. J. Simpson was not an instance
27:06
Speaker 1: of self defense in this case. Look, I think what
27:11
Speaker 1: we have seen in and around and in the aftermath
27:15
Speaker 1: of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial is the perversion and destruction
27:19
Speaker 1: of our justice system from the hard left, and that
27:23
Speaker 1: was true on multiple levels. During the trial. You saw
27:27
Speaker 1: much of the media. You saw many of the left
27:29
Speaker 1: wing commentators demonizing the judge, attacking the judge personally, trying
27:34
Speaker 1: to defame the judge. The judge, by the way, is
27:37
Speaker 1: trying to enforce the law. So, for example, by the way,
27:40
Speaker 1: this prosecution, this prosecutor is the Gomer Pile of Screwups.
27:48
Speaker 1: Is one of the worst trial lawyers I've ever seen.
27:51
Speaker 1: He got repeatedly admonaged from the trial judge because he
27:55
Speaker 1: kept doing things wrong. He stood up to the jury
27:57
Speaker 1: and said, can you believe he exercise his right right
28:01
Speaker 1: to be silent. Well, you're allowed to do that. The
28:05
Speaker 1: Fifth Amendment protects your right to remain silent. The moment
28:11
Speaker 1: that that really encapsulates it is when the prosecutor took
28:15
Speaker 1: the AR fifteen and pointed it at the jury with
28:19
Speaker 1: his finger on the trigger, which is horrific. And by
28:22
Speaker 1: the way, anyone who has the barest monicum of of
28:24
Speaker 1: firearms training knows you don't put your finger on the trip.
28:27
Speaker 1: You don't point the gun at anybody unless you are
28:31
Speaker 1: in a situation where you are prepared to and may
28:33
Speaker 1: need to use lethal force. And you don't put your
28:36
Speaker 1: finger on the trigger unless you are prepared to it
28:39
Speaker 1: in the instance of pulling the trigger to fire the gun.
28:41
Speaker 1: And it you know, to be honest, it when he
28:45
Speaker 1: pointed it at the jury, it reminded me of you know,
28:47
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin. I mean, it was something nobody who was
28:51
Speaker 1: familiar with firearms would possibly do. And yet this clown
28:56
Speaker 1: was literally pointing a gun and hoping it was unloaded
29:00
Speaker 1: at the jury. But the perversion of justice those on
29:05
Speaker 1: the left, and that includes Democrats and media and Hollywood,
29:09
Speaker 1: they don't care that the jury heard the evidence and
29:12
Speaker 1: has spoken. They don't care about self defense. Stephen Colbert says, well,
29:15
Speaker 1: if the law says that it's self defense, we should
29:18
Speaker 1: change the law. So what they're saying is you should
29:22
Speaker 1: not have the right if someone is violently attacking you,
29:25
Speaker 1: if you are on the ground, if a mob is
29:28
Speaker 1: chasing you, if they're beating you, if they are threatening
29:30
Speaker 1: to kill you, you should not have the right to
29:34
Speaker 1: defend yourself. That's scary stuff. But the perversion of justice
29:39
Speaker 1: is broader than that. All of this began because left
29:45
Speaker 1: wing prosecutors and left wing politicians refuse to enforce the
29:48
Speaker 1: law and protect the community from Kenosha against violent rioters.
29:52
Speaker 1: If law enforcement had been allowed to do its job
29:56
Speaker 1: to arrest the rioters, to put them in jail, to
29:58
Speaker 1: put them in handcuffs, you know what, Rose Bob would
30:00
Speaker 1: have still been alive. Huber would have still been alive.
30:02
Speaker 1: They would have been arrested for being violent criminals and rioting,
30:05
Speaker 1: but they would have still been alive. But the politicians
30:08
Speaker 1: created this problem, and I got to say, we saw
30:11
Speaker 1: a manifestation of that tragically this week again in Wisconsin
30:18
Speaker 1: with the horrific Christmas parade. The lunatic who drove the
30:24
Speaker 1: SUV into that parade, killing wounding dozens, I think upwards
30:32
Speaker 1: of forty people, including young children. It was horrific, and
30:39
Speaker 1: you noticed the media isn't covering what caused it. You
30:43
Speaker 1: had an individual number one, a Black Lives Matter supporter
30:48
Speaker 1: or a rapper, a repeat felon Yea who had just
30:55
Speaker 1: recently been arrested for what for running someone over with
31:00
Speaker 1: his car. Not just someone, the mother of his child,
31:03
Speaker 1: the same car that he used to commit this crime.
31:06
Speaker 1: He had run her over with to violently assault her.
31:10
Speaker 1: He had been arrested. And there's a left wing prosecutor,
31:14
Speaker 1: the district attorney in Milwaukee, who was elected with George
31:17
Speaker 1: Soros's financial support. He's part of the left wing prosecutors
31:20
Speaker 1: across the country who don't prosecute violent criminals. They let
31:26
Speaker 1: this guy go, Michael, do you know what his bail
31:28
Speaker 1: was that they let him go on? So it's hard
31:32
Speaker 1: to keep track because he's been arrested so many times
31:34
Speaker 1: in recent years. The first time, gosh, it was either
31:39
Speaker 1: five hundred or a thousand dollars, and I think it
31:42
Speaker 1: was a thousand dollars this time too, Yeah, it was
31:44
Speaker 1: a thousand dollars. He was on bail. For running over
31:48
Speaker 1: the mother of his child with the car. He was
31:50
Speaker 1: out on bail. In just a few days later, boom,
31:53
Speaker 1: he runs over dozens of people. And it's the same
31:58
Speaker 1: problem when you have left wing politicians, prosecutors, DA's governors,
32:05
Speaker 1: mayors that refuse to enforce the law. Violent criminals target
32:12
Speaker 1: innocent citizens. And whether that is burning stores and car
32:16
Speaker 1: lots and kenosha or I mean, what a nightmare. The
32:20
Speaker 1: videos of that lunatic driving into that parade is the
32:24
Speaker 1: stuff of nightmares. But it's not an accident. It's the
32:28
Speaker 1: result of policies destroying our justice system, which the radical
32:34
Speaker 1: left is trying to spread across the country. And this
32:36
Speaker 1: is the dark side of a criminal justice reform, and
32:39
Speaker 1: which is the euphemism that is used for movements as
32:42
Speaker 1: radical as abolishing the police or abolishing prisons. Rashida to leave.
32:46
Speaker 1: The Democrat congressman continues to maintain that we need to
32:50
Speaker 1: empty out federal prisons within ten years, empty them all out,
32:53
Speaker 1: not leave a single person in them. And this is
32:56
Speaker 1: it sounds all very nice and happy and feel good
32:59
Speaker 1: and Kumbai. Yeah, and we're gonna be really compassionate to
33:02
Speaker 1: the criminals. Well, here's the flip side is that people
33:04
Speaker 1: who have done very bad things, who are not reformed,
33:07
Speaker 1: who we're going to do really bad things again, go
33:09
Speaker 1: out and what do they do? Surprise, surprise, they do
33:12
Speaker 1: really bad things. This is the practical effect of the
33:15
Speaker 1: extremes of criminal justice reform, and hopefully people can learn
33:19
Speaker 1: a lesson from that, Republicans certainly, but hopefully Democrats too,
33:22
Speaker 1: because I don't think people like to see their communities
33:25
Speaker 1: being torched and looted and attacked by these criminals. I
33:31
Speaker 1: want to take a minute and praise the courage of
33:35
Speaker 1: the twelve members of the jury. Look, it was not
33:39
Speaker 1: complicated that there was and remains a very real threat
33:45
Speaker 1: to their physical safety and lives. Left wing activists were
33:49
Speaker 1: taking their pictures. I mean heck, MSNBC was banned from
33:52
Speaker 1: the courtroom because the cameraman was allegedly trying to follow
33:57
Speaker 1: the jurors. And I promise you those jurors knew if
34:01
Speaker 1: we vote to a quit, we may find radicals threatening
34:07
Speaker 1: us in our families. And and you know it's easy
34:10
Speaker 1: to say, well, of course they did the right thing. Look,
34:12
Speaker 1: jurors get scared, and it was there were a lot
34:18
Speaker 1: of forces that wanted to use the threat of violence
34:22
Speaker 1: to intimidate those jurors to convict that kid. Facts be
34:26
Speaker 1: damn we want to scalp and I just want to
34:30
Speaker 1: praise those twelve men and women for doing the right
34:33
Speaker 1: thing in the face of a real risk of intimidation
34:37
Speaker 1: and violence. That that that is a moment to be
34:40
Speaker 1: proud of our country and our justice system for ordinary
34:44
Speaker 1: Americans doing their duty and following the law. Absolutely, courage
34:49
Speaker 1: and moral clarity are in short supply, so it's it's
34:52
Speaker 1: really edifying and gratifying to see people exercise that. All right,
34:56
Speaker 1: we've got to go Liz anything before we leave. Yes,
34:58
Speaker 1: we do not have time in this episode today because
35:00
Speaker 1: we had so much good content for a mailbag, but
35:03
Speaker 1: for next week's episode, go on over to Verdict with
35:06
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35:08
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35:11
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35:14
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35:19
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35:22
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35:24
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35:29
Speaker 1: plus virtual digital community. But we are going to be
35:32
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35:35
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35:46
Speaker 1: Go to YAF dot org slash Verdict. The deadline to
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Speaker 1: apply is December fifteenth, So please get all of those
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Speaker 1: will there. What are they like? Three of those We'll
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Speaker 1: the country. So make sure where you get your schools in.
36:01
Speaker 1: For now, that's all I'm Michael. This is Verdict with
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